


The World in the Syringe Between my Fingers

by thefrenchmistake



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Episode: s14e15 Truth or Dare, F/M, Post-Season/Series 14
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-03
Updated: 2020-02-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:01:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22544464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefrenchmistake/pseuds/thefrenchmistake
Summary: And it’s bliss, to just plunge the needle into his flesh and think “let me slip, let me slip, let me slip over this edge I walk every fucking second”. It’s a relief, and he cannot wonder why he does it, he cannot wonder if someone will fucking see, because he will literally break if he does.
Relationships: Jennifer "JJ" Jareau & Spencer Reid, Jennifer "JJ" Jareau/Spencer Reid, Jennifer "JJ" Jareau/William LaMontagne Jr.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 57





	The World in the Syringe Between my Fingers

**Author's Note:**

> Another JJ/Spencer because I'm a sucker for them and the show has given me no closure whatsoever, so here goes ! Not very satisfied with this one, but enjoy !

Momentum Conservation.

That’s the technical term for when the gun recoils back in your hand; the finger on the trigger presses down, and then the bullet leaves the barrel and the gun rears backwards.

Spencer knows that term, of course he does.

He just never thought it would apply to something other than a gun, but the fact is that JJ’s words have pulled the trigger and now he is the one absorbing the force of the conservation of momentum, before the gun surges forward to her.

And the aftermath ?

Well. That’s what the syringe is here for.

Honestly, he fought it so hard. He didn’t relapse when Emily was -supposedly- dead, when he thought he had failed her.

He didn’t relapse when he realized that JJ, his best fucking friend in the whole world, had let him wallow in his misery and almost, almost slip to a place he could not get back from. That she had let him cry on her shoulder, bury his head in the crook of her neck, sobs wrecking his body, and she hadn’t _told_ him. He almost slipped that time, it came so close; but he had JJ, as corny as that may sound. He had her.

He’s slipping now.

And it’s bliss, to just plunge the needle into his flesh and think “let me slip, let me slip, let me slip over this edge I walk every fucking second”. It’s a relief, and he cannot wonder why he does it, he cannot wonder if someone will fucking see, because he will literally break if he does.

And when he stumbles into a dreamless sleep, arm hurting like hell and mind foggy, he’ll see pink lips stretching in a contrite smile, sunshine threading between his fingers, and blue irises boring into his soul and making him wish this could be the last thing he sees.

It never is.

From now on, the psychotropic drug finds its home in his pocket. Intravenous administration is much easier than any other therapy for him; injection is always better that oral administration.

He comes into work, puts coffee on her desk and she smiles; he locks himself in a bathroom stall and fumbles for the flask of liquid heaven. When the needle pierces his skin, the anxiety leaves his body sagged and empty, sore.

She hands him a file with mirth in her eyes and laughter on her lips, and he cannot get high soon enough.

“Hey, Spence”-needle-“Got ya,” she chuckles, poking his cheek-needle- “Seriously ?” She sighs-needle.

He is sinking.

More and more, each day, he has trouble filling his lungs with something other than drugs, he has trouble reaching for the surface that seems farther and farther away. He reaches the depths, though, the cold, lonely, dark depths. And still, he can hear her voice saying “I’ve always loved you” and still he can see her eyes blurred by tears and the gun on her head and still he wishes she could love him and he could let himself love her.

The world doesn’t work this way though.

And even with his fogged mind, numbed by drugs, he notices far too much.

He notices everything about her all the time, like since her confession she is the only clear, vibrant thing in the blur, always at the center of his vision. He wishes he could tune it out.

How her tongue sticks out between her teeth when she’s focused, how her eyes narrow when she’s reading, how she smiles softly, openly, when it’s directed at him, how her eyes twinkle when she talks about her children, and especially to him. It’s like he’s alone in the world, steps towards a window that allows to see her and only her.

What he fails to notice, though, is that she knows him -she might be the one who knows him best- and while he cannot stop his gaze from lingering on her, she frowns and ponders and _notices_ things.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise, then, when she barges into his apartment in the middle of the fucking night, when his mind is for once fogged with sleep and not with drugs, and she turns towards him, all fury and blonde storm, and snaps:

“Show me your arm.”

It takes a while for the information to get to his brains, and then he recoils.

“What ?”

“Show me. Your arm.”

His mind urges to find a solution, to make his mouth work, to make him blurt accusations and defense and lies…

He can’t. He can’t lie to her.

Seeing as he doesn’t move, she steps forward, grabs his wrist and pulls his sleeve up.

To her credit, her expression doesn’t waver -except her eyes, God, they’re so sad all of a sudden- even as her fingers hover above the needle points, the marks of his decadence.

They stay like this a while, with him not daring to breathe too loud, with her staring at the inside of his elbow. And then her eyes snap up; there is no trace left of sadness, only anger.

“What the FUCK Spence ?”

He opens his mouth, and she throws his hand to the side.

“Why the fuck would you do that ?”

Why-Why-Why, they’re finally in a good place, aren’t they ?

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he spits, and it’s not what he intended to say, and he knows it’ll only go downhill from there because the venom in his voice is a challenge and JJ has never backed down before him. “I’m sorry I can’t have your perfect life and ignore this, make it all go away and then walk back to my husband and act as if it didn’t happen.”

She recoils like he’s insulted her and… he probably did. He doesn’t quite know at this point, he just knows he’s hurt and so mad at everything it’s making him lose his mind a little.

“Is that what you think ?”

“I don’t know, Jennifer ! You might be able to go back to the way things were, to Will, to playing happy family, but I can’t act as though nothing happened.”

“Oh so that’s the future you want to have ? That’s the mature, logical decision you came up with ? Sticking needles in your arm and closing off to the world ?”

“Stop playing almighty, you…”

“You’re an addict Spence !” She screams, gesturing wildly like she wants to shake him. “You use drugs as an excuse, you use them to just turn your back on your problems and withdraw from people who actually care !”

“You did this to me ! You fucking did this !”

“Do NOT make me the excuse for your relapse ! This is not on me !”

“You told me you loved me !” He shouts, louder than he has in a fucking long time. “And then you acted as if it hadn’t happened, as if it didn’t _matter_ !”

“Fucking hell Spence,” she snaps, and her blue eyes are furious, sending lightning into his brains and he’s never wanted to kiss her so badly. “I avoided talking about it because it matters too much ! It matters too much, and I don’t know how to handle it, how to make it fit in the life I already have !”

“You mean make _me_ fit ?”

“Of course not,” she hisses. “You already fit. You fit too well. But as my best friend, not as… not as…”

“And what if I want to fit as more ?” He cuts her off. “What if I want more ?"

She looks up at him (he’s so much taller), disbelief written all over her features, and she gulps. Looks away even as he cannot tear his eyes from her face.

“You don’t want this.”

“Don’t,” he snaps, shaking his head and stepping back. “Don’t tell me what I want.”

“Oh, so you’re telling me you’re ready to jeopardize everything and…”

“Are you ?”

She shuts her mouth, suddenly breathless, and stares at him.

“Are you, JJ ?”

It’s so silent, all of a sudden, in his little apartment with needle points in his arm and a drug stash hidden under his bed. It’s so quiet and he doesn’t know if he wants her to break the silence because her eyes are wide and terrified, and he knows the answer, he does, but he thinks he wants to hear it all the same.

“I… I don’t…”

“Yeah”, he indulges, “I know.”

“I’m sorry, ok ?” She sighs. She passes a hand on her face, looks up. “God. I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be, you… That’s not your fault. And I’d rather you don’t lie to me, so… I shouldn’t have asked you, I guess.”

“No, Spence, it’s not on you”, she shakes her head, looks down at her feet. “I don’t think it’s on either of us.”

He nods but she can’t see and this whole situation is so fucked up and his eyes burn like his arm does. He walks to the kitchen, knowing she’s following, and pours them both a drink of some disgusting cheap alcohol he keeps in a cabinet.

They gulp it down in a second, and he has to open his mouth because God, that is so _disgusting_.

JJ almost laughs at the look on his face, but keeps herself in check.

“Where did you get that shit ?”

He shakes his head, finding it difficult to talk with a swollen tongue.

JJ pours herself another one, but doesn’t immediately drink it. She plays with her glass, eyes on the counter and a small tremor in her voice when she finally talks.

“Aren’t you hurt enough, every day, on the job or not ? Aren’t you sick of being hurt ?”

He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know, but the pain made him numb long before the drugs did, so he nods.

“Then why do you hurt yourself ?” She tears up. “Isn’t it enough already ?”

“I just… I don’t know what else to do,” he finally confesses and those simple words apparently weighed on him more than anything, because he breaks here and there, in his little kitchen with his mouth burning form cheap booze and his eyes unable to look away from hers.

“I can’t forget it, JJ. I tried, I tried so hard, but I can’t just shrug it off, I… I can’t stop thinking about it, and thinking about you, and how I should’ve done things differently and all this regret is just.. I feel like I’m choking on it, some days, and you’re always here and… And without the drugs to calm my mind a little, I can’t… I can’t be around you. Without them, I don’t know if I can just go on like nothing ever happened and move on. Because you told me… and you know I feel the same. I’ve always felt the same.”

Her eyes are suspiciously blurry and her hands shake a bit when she brings the drink to her lips, but she doesn’t say anything.

“I ignored it, for 15 years, I ignored it but then you… You said that, and now I can’t ignore it anymore. I can’t. There is everything and there is you and sometimes I just think you’re everything and…”

“Spence…”

“No, please just… We both know there is nothing to do about this. But I want and that’s… That’s a problem. That’s a huge fucking problem.”

“I know,” she breathes. Her eyes meet his, then, and she chokes out. “Fuck, Spence, I _know_.”

He doesn’t know what to answer to that so he gulps, restrains himself from reaching for her.

God, he wants this so bad.

“I don’t know what to do about it. I’m sorry.”

“Me too.”

“Just… I’ll do whatever, ok ? We can keep our distances, and not even talk if you don’t want to,” she says but it seems to rip her in half and he feels a tremendous fear at the idea of not talking to her every damn day. “I can organize myself so we”re not alone anymore or not so much in the same room, or… I don’t know. I can do it. I just… I just want you to be ok,” she ends in a whisper.

Yeah, he wants that, too.

It’s not good.

It’s not even better, sometimes. But it’s something, to get the little smiles she sends his way, to get her hand in his when his fingers clench and crave the coldness of the syringe.

His blood screams, sometimes, screams for drugs and peace and nothingness, or her body on his and her hair brushing his skin. 

But then Garcia will poke his cheek, and JJ will raise her eyebrows mockingly at him, and all thoughts of hurting himself like that again will fly out of the window.

So.

Maybe it’s not better. His heart hurts because JJ still goes home to her husband, and he keeps himself from imagining a life he could have had with her when he sees Henry on the weekends.

Maybe it’s not better.

But it’s something, to get rid of the needle and of the little flask.

It’s something, to smile back at JJ with honesty.

It’s life, he thinks.

Just life.


End file.
